Pinewood Derby

The best Rangers and Keepers event of the year, the pinewood derby, was last night!

Each of our big kids had a car: "Sweet Treats," "Wacky Creation," and "Eat My Ketchup."

Jason did a great job checking in cars and running the heats.

...and our own sweet Paige won 2 first-place medals in her category! First in speed and first in design!

Meredith is 8!

Mall Scavenger Hunt party; so fun!

She's decided she doesn't like cake - ice cream cake it is!

The next day was her actual birthday - Pops and Mimi came over for dinner. Meredith requested shrimp fried rice, fruit salad, and bell pepper strips.

...and mint chocolate chip ice cream sundaes!

Favorites at 8:

TV show: Odd Squad

Book series: Rainbow Magic Fairies

School subject: writing

Store: Claire's

Color: gold

We're grateful for Meredith's faith, helpfulness, responsibility, intelligence, and friendliness. We love you, Meredith!

Surf City, here we come

Paige learned golf strategies from Dan, and loved it!

Looking the part:

Excited to enjoy a big kid activity!

Great deck overlooking the ocean:

500 piece puzzle - Dan completed 75% of it solo:

First night: cold air, don't care!

The tent that blew away:

On the docks by Sears Landing:

Easter 2019

SGC had a wonderful Easter choir that Meredith sang in:

Video Here

We had Easter dinner at Jon and Meghan's house, and all the kids loved their new playset!

First Day of School 2018-19!

First day of school on August 6!

Our one-room schoolhouse subjects this year:

Bible: right now we're doing My Brother's Keeper sibling love study

History: Mystery of History Vol 1

Science: Everything You Need to Know about Science Homework

Read-alouds: started with Cricket in Times Square

The 2nd and 3rd grader are doing together:

Math: Abeka Levels 2 and 3

Grammar: Interactive Grammar Notebook from TPT

Spelling: Flash Spelling Grade 3

Music Theory (conglomoration of resources)

Latin: Prima Latina

Writing: IEW Bible Heroes

Our big 3rd grader also got braces on the first day of school and handled it like a champ.

Russell is using Drawn Into the Heart of Reading grades 4-5 for reading.

Meredith is using All About Reading Level 3 for reading.

The little girls are doing a circle time together with me this year, which includes read alouds, calendar time, crafts and songs and name-spelling activities. It's about a half-hour every day, and they're loving it!

Big kindergartener this year! Paige is using A Reason for Handwriting, Abeka math K5, and Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

Daphne has a shapes, letters, and numbers book, and is learning scissor skills, in addition to joining in the rest of the activities!

I'm just here for the coffee! Or rather, because of the coffee ;)

Extracurriculars:

Russell: guitar (new this year and he's enjoying it), a social/communication class, and Royal Rangers, and a writing class

Meredith: ballet, piano with Mom, and Keepers of the Faith, and a writing class

Paige: ballet, possibly an instrument (TBD), and a kindergarten class 2x/mo

Daphne:  a preK class 2x/mo

This, in addition to church activities and CC activities, of course! We're keeping busy but enjoying it!

CC Moms' Retreat

Had a fun and fulfilling and relaxing retreat in Blowing Rock with 14 of our lovely CC mamas for this school year at the beginning of August. That was maybe the 4th time I've been away from my kids overnight since Russell was born. It was a much-needed getaway!

Drove up with these friends:

The cabin was beautiful! More like a mansion. I took this picture because I knew the kids would be tickled by this bear table!

We spent a lot of time in prayer and Bible study, but we also went shopping! We got some of Kilwin's famous ice cream; the salted caramel was delish.

I thought this was a meaningful quote:

Lunch on the last day at a cafe with a beautiful garden:

Sunset over the mountains:

It was a nice reset button before our school year started.

Paige and Daphne's Birthday Party!

Paige and Daphne had a joint 5th and 3rd birthday party at the beginning of August. It was held at a play place with a really large indoor playground set, plus a toddler set, and an area for snacks/cake. It was inexpensive, indestructible, and fun! We ended up having 24 (I think?) of their friends, including siblings, there. Couldn't have asked for anything better!